


A Girl's Best Friend

by magicianlogician12



Series: Heart of Steel [4]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6629890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicianlogician12/pseuds/magicianlogician12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some think diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Others, like Tabi, think a .50 caliber sniper rifle takes that place of honor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Girl's Best Friend

Tabi rarely repaired her armor aboard the Prydwen.

It wasn’t that the airship lacked the materials, or the storage space for materials she already had. It wasn’t even that there were people here who barely knew her and assumed she wanted to start a conversation with them, even so, though that did bother her more than a little.

It was, Tabi would admit, that she liked the relative cleanliness of the Cambridge station’s garage. The station was newly-bolstered with knights and scribes, but the garage always seemed quiet when Tabi was there. No clutter resided there, besides her own occasional scrap or salvage, and keeping a clean workstation was paramount to ensuring her belongings didn’t mix with someone else’s.

One would’ve assumed that, considering the nature of the vessel, someone wouldn’t leave their weapon lying around, and they certainly wouldn’t leave it in the middle of a power armor station, but what did Tabi know?

She scowled at the rifle, sitting in her way, as though it had personally insulted her. Tabi was already irritable–she’d just come through a radiation storm after a protracted battle with feral ghouls in a charter school down south–and she was scarce in the mood to deal with clutter while encased in a metal suit.

Sighing deeply with annoyance, Tabi slowly and laboriously leaned down to pick the rifle up. In her hands, she noted that it was indeed a very nice rifle–it was .50 caliber, very powerful, with a long night vision scope, and a large quick eject magazine. Had she been able to afford one, or afford the materials that went into improving one, Tabi might have killed for such a weapon–figuratively speaking, she told herself, just figuratively.

Regretfully, in the end, Tabi set the rifle aside and stepped out of her armor, rolling her shoulders in an attempt to loosen the rock-hard muscle. Heading into the mess hall, she was waylaid by Haylen. “Anything interesting happen today?” she asked as Tabi sat down opposite her.

“Nothing worth writing home about, unless a radiation storm counts.” Tabi popped her knuckles and examined her fraying fingernails. “Though someone should really learn to pick up after their weapons, instead of leaving them lying around in the middle of an armor rack.”

Haylen blinked. “Oh. Hmm. That seems odd.”

“I know. You’d think that aboard a ship like this, people could keep track of their own gear, but what do I know, right?” Tabi took a long drink from a can of purified water that had been stored within her armor. “Anything interesting happen here while I was gone?”

“Did the rifle have any sort of identification?” Haylen asked. Thrown by the topic change, Tabi blinked twice before replying.

“I didn’t…see any.” Tabi narrowed her eyes, trying to remember. “I guess I should go see if it belongs to someone important.”

As they walked, a sudden realization made Tabi nearly stop in her tracks. _She said, did the **rifle**  have any sort of identification. I never mentioned that it was a rifle._ Hiding a smile, Tabi picked up the conversation again. “So…do _you_  know anything about who it might belong to?”

“Me? No.” Haylen responded just a little too quickly.

“Hmm.” Tabi picked the rifle up again. She knew there was _something_  at play here, but couldn’t figure out what it might be. Pulling the slide back, she found the chamber empty. Letting it go, Tabi examined it from barrel to stock, searching for identification.

“All right, I give up.” Tabi gave the rifle another once-over. “Someone is messy _and_  can’t be bothered to identify their weapons. I’m going to have to kick someone’s ass over that.”

“It’s yours.” Haylen blurted out.

Tabi froze, looked at the rifle, then at Haylen, then back again. “ _Mine?”_

“Yours.” Haylen repeated, then sighed. “Proctor Teagan had that rifle sold to him a few weeks ago, but it was in pretty bad shape. I got some materials and asked if he or someone else could fix it up.”

“ _This_?” Tabi’s voice nearly went shrill with shock. “Haylen, I can’t accept this–it’s _way_  too expensive for me. It had to have cost a small fortune to make it this nice.”

“Well, it’s either you keep it and put it to some use,” Haylen said wryly, “or those bottlecaps and scrap were spent in vain.”

Tabi glanced down at the weapon again. “Then I’ll keep it and put it to some use. Even if I still think it’s far too nice for me.”

“Debatable.” Haylen stated, beaming now that she’d been victorious. “ _I_  think it’s just right.”


End file.
